


When I run out of air to breathe it's your ghost I see

by JuliaBaggins



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Dark Fantasy, M/M, Major Character Injury, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Some inspiration by "The Man in the Iron Mask", but there'll be quite a lot as i've got many plans for this story, not sure which tags to use yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-22 19:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10703394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/pseuds/JuliaBaggins
Summary: Merlin is using his magic to fight for a king he doesn't believe in and a kingdom without a future.But what if there might be someone else, someone who shares a face with the king and a destiny with Merlin?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> When I had the idea for this story a few hours ago I couldn't stop thinking about it and so I already have got material for quite a lot of chapters, if someone would be interested in reading them...

The deep red wine left a heavy taste on Merlin’s tongue and he swallowed. Another sip. It was not as if he actually enjoyed the wine or its taste, but the alcohol offered a blissful oblivion that would allow him to forget about his pain and his guilt for some hours. And tonight, this was just what he needed, what he craved. 

In the distance, Merlin could hear the soldiers, their laughter mixing with the cracking of various fires. They were celebrating today’s victory, because even if it hadn’t been a particularly important battle, it still had been a battle. A battle they had won, and so they celebrated. That it hadn’t been them who burst into flames today, that they would be allowed to live another day of their miserable lives, were able to share one more drink with each other. That they would see the sun once again. Or maybe the soldiers weren’t thinking about the sun this much, but Merlin was. 

While he sat with his back to a tree, his eyes cast away from the fires and the men around them, Merlin thought of the sun. He tried to imagine the warm golden light, how the sunbeams would sometimes tickle him on a warm summer day. Not that he had seen many summer days recently, but the memory of them never left him. And he never dared to stop hoping that he would see them once again.

Merlin’s fingers danced around each other and after he had imagined the sun’s warmth for some minutes, little flames started to dance around them. It hurt, even after all these years, all those times he had done this, but there were worse kinds of pain. At the moment, Merlin nearly enjoyed it, how the flames he had summoned burnt his own fingertips, because he felt as if he deserved it. Deserved things way worse than flames that would take all marks they had left on his fingers with them as soon as they would burn out. There never were scars, or burn marks – never on himself. But sometimes, the pain stayed, and tonight, Merlin hoped that the pain in his fingers, combined with the whole bottle of wine he had drunk by now, would help him to forget the pain in his heart. To let him sleep without nightmares, may it be just for an hour.

 

Merlin must have fallen asleep at some time, because when he heard a sound in the distance, he woke up. For a moment, he was unsure about where he was, what was happening, what the sound had been. But then he heard it again, and suddenly Merlin realized that it had been a scream. Screams. The wind carried them up to his tree while Merlin got up and ran towards the soldier’s tents, or he tried to do so – after a few meters, he stumbled, and he fell. His right hand, the one Merlin had planned to catch his fall with, had started bleeding but right now, there were other things to care about. The burning tents in front of him for example, or the screaming soldiers that were trapped inside a large one. 

With a deep breath, Merlin closed his eyes and started to concentrate. His fingertips began to feel warm, not painful like the flames but warm in a good way, one that was exciting, and soon, the warmth started spreading above his fingers. Or maybe his fingers just got longer and longer, invisibly growing until they found what they were searching for – Merlin did not know how exactly the magic left his body, but she did. 

Soon, Merlin got an impression of water on his fingertips, soft waves somewhere in the distance, and with another deep breath, he told the water to move. And it did – the water left the little pond some miles away where Merlin had found it, rolled across the high grass in thick waves that did not quite touch the earth, and Merlin gave it a final swing with his hand. The water fell upon the flames, killing them in a vicious fight that left nothing but heavy smoke and black, wet ruins where not long ago, proud tents had stood. Some soldiers got up, looking around for their savior that they knew had to be Merlin for he was their army’s only wizard within a hundred miles. He was to be found not far away, his eyes two pools of melted gold inside his pale face; eyes that somehow reflected the distant stars in their light and their power.

 

Merlin had just started to turn away from the remains of the tents, to see if there were any enemies to be spotted around when they spotted him first. 

Some months ago, Merlin had had to find out that he was able to stop an arrow if he had to, or at least change the way it flew, but back then, he had been aware that it was flying towards him. Now, he was not, and so the arrow hit Merlin in his side, the metal cutting through his flesh as if it were butter. He felt it deep inside him, felt his magic boiling around it, and once again, he fell towards the earth. Though this time, Merlin seriously doubted if he would get up again.

Merlin breathed in the smell of the ground, the promise of spring it held somewhere in its depths, and as he had done many times before, he wished he had been allowed to see the sun just once again. With a strangled scream, Merlin used the magic that was still flickering through his veins to get rid of the arrow and once it had left his body, he felt as if he would collapse into the earth.

 

They say that in the moment before you die, or when you come close enough to death that you can feel its icy fingers scratching at your skin, the magic that is hidden deep inside everyone will show you the face of the person you hold the greatest love of your life for. So it may be understandable that even through his pain, and the fog that was already clouding his mind, Merlin felt a stab of surprise when he saw the face of his king before himself right in that moment. The face of his king that Merlin hated with all his heart, and it was the last thing that Merlin saw before there was nothing left but whispering darkness.


	2. The nameless man in the tower

There was a little piece of the sky somewhere above him, a slightly lighter shade of grey than the walls surrounding it, and on most days, he would just lay on the floor, staring at it. During the years, he had tried everything, climbing until the rough stones had scratched his fingers bloody, but he never managed to get all the way up there. 

And even if he would, he was aware that his body would never fit through that little window, that there was no way to escape. There never really had been one, and he knew this, but still – there was not much he could do in this lonely chamber somewhere in a tower at the end of the world, and if he was honest with himself, he would already try everything for just a look through that window. He imagined how from up there, he might be able to see a larger piece of the sky, and underneath it, the landscape. 

 

What surrounded this tower he did not know; he had never been able to catch a look outside since he had been brought here and when this had happened, years ago, he had been blindfolded for the whole journey so he had no idea where they took him. 

Sometimes, he liked to imagine the tower to be surrounded by wood, mighty trees lining up like an army to lead, sometimes he thought of mountains, caves to hide from the people who held him captured here, and sometimes, he saw gentle field, glowing under an evening sun like nothing bad could ever happen in this world.

 

In his imagination, all kinds of animals lived out there, and they all spoke to each other in their strange tongues. This was one of the things he missed the most here – the noises of animals, a bird singing, a horse neighing. Up in the tower, he could never hear any of these, could not even see a bird in the sky, and sometimes, he wondered if this was a part of the curse. Not that it really would matter, because he knew that there was no way to change it, curse or not. The only thing he sometimes heard was the sound of the rain against the thick stone walls, a soft dipping of countless fingers, or once in a while the roaring of a thunderstorm in the distance. 

About a year ago, he had seen a lightning flash right above his little window in a stormy summer night, and he wondered if it would have been powerful enough to burst his tower had it collided with it. If he would have been able to survive this, and if it truly would have mattered.

 

When he finally looked away from the window, he spotted something in the corner: a piece of bread and a leather bottle that he knew would be filled with water. He never saw anyone bring in the food, never had, and he was convinced that it was done by magic. What a shame it was that magic only ever was used for evil – he imagined that if he had magical powers, like he often had wished for, he could fight against the curse that held him and break out of here. Climb a tree, like he had done when he was just a boy with a name and a laugh and no idea how lucky he had been back then. 

But sadly, he seemed to possess no magic at all, and no wizard or witch had ever come to help him. No one at all ever had and with time, he had slowly come to accept that no one ever would. They had somehow managed to have everyone he knew forget about him, or they just didn’t care, and anyway, how long had he been here at all? 

He did not know how long it had been, only that it felt like a lifetime and more. And that he would spend the rest of his days here, all alone, forever – without a name, a tree to climb or another person to share one last smile with. 

There would never be anything but grey stone, tasteless bread and deafening silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Nice comments are very welcome! :)


End file.
